There’s a scene in Babylon 5 where Captain Sheridan confronts a mysterious man named Justin, who is part of the Shadows’ conspiracy. When Sheridan first meets Jusin, he quizzes him on his identity (quoting from memory, so this won’t be exact):
“Who are you?”
“Now that’s really not important.”
“Who are you?”
“Who decides that the workday will be from 9 to 5 instead of 10 to 4? That the hemlines will be shorter this year, longer the next? Who defines the borders? The political boundaries? Who makes the thousands of decisions that happen invisibly all around us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah. I’m . . . with them. Same group. Different department. Think of me as a sort of ‘middle man.'”
Well, it seems that Mr. Justin is with the Color Marketing Group, a group that remains totally hidden to most of us. It was founded in 1962 (NOTE: The year before the Kennedy Assassination!), and now there are allegations that it is the center of a sinister conspiracy to . . . Dum! Dum! Dum! . . . CONTROL THE COLORS OF THE OBJECTS IN OUR LIVES, EVEN THE VERY CLOTHES WE PUT ON OUR BODIES!!!
Dragging this conspiracy into the light is this blog, which reveals the following shocking details:
I’ve known people who think official color reassignments are a conspiracy theory. The short answer is that they are a conspiracy, but they aren’t theoretical. I submit as evidence the assigned colors for 2004, 2003 and 2002. And here are some recent specimens of the new range, to give you a better idea of what they look like when in use.
Who does this to us? An outfit, founded in 1962, called the Color Marketing Group. These are the people who wished avocado green and harvest gold kitchen appliances on America, and put the 1980s into those mauve-pink shades that looked so peculiarly horrible on so many of us.
Basically, the CMG is a trade organization, with 1,500 members drawn from a bunch of different industries. Twice a year they get together in Alexandria, VA, to come up with long-term and short-term color predictions. The long-term prediction is a set of sixteen colors that will be profitably marketable two years hence. That is, the 2003 palette was distributed to manufacturers in 2001. The short-term prediction is a palette of colors declared to be currently the thing.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nobody’s obliged to follow CMG’s lead; but a manufacturer who ignores them is likely to find that all his competitors’ products are in fashionably compatible colors, while his own clash.
READ MORE AND LEARN WHAT SINISTER PLANS THE CONSIRACY HAS IN STORE FOR US!
FIGHT THE FUTURE!
So it’s sage-and-beige season again, eh? Great – just the thing to make me look like Walking Jaundice.
Fortunately I’m too old and too lazy to be a serious fashionista so I will continue to buy from LL Bean and Deva Lifewear, who unapologetically carry women’s clothing in jade green, bright red and cobalt blue. Major appliances (if you need them) are always available in white, so that shouldn’t be a problem. My china pattern is discerningly eclectic, thanks to breakage and random replacement over the years. My spring raincoat (bought at Sears in 1989) is a screaming, fire-engine red, and all the other kindergarten moms can spot me coming half a mile away. In short, I would be every marketer’s nightmare, if I were the sort of person they were trying to attract.
As for color predictions: thanks to G. K. Chesterton, we all know about that charming game, Cheat the Prophet. Let us go now and do likewise.